Levelling-up Fund: Rother Valley

Luke Hall Excerpts

Thursday 13th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government (Luke Hall)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford) on securing this hugely important debate. Since his hugely important and historic election result in December 2019, he has shown his passion and determination to secure the brightest possible future for his constituents. He has been a true cheerleader for the Rother Valley, as he has demonstrated today, championing the local issues that he has outlined, like Dinnington high street through the impressive 1,800-signature petition that he submitted to Parliament; like his campaigning on high streets with the Minister without Portfolio, my right hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Amanda Milling); like his work on bringing net zero jobs to his constituency; like the numerous meetings he has held with his local council, with businesses and with stakeholders to ascertain and understand their levelling-up priorities, to ensure that those can be reflected properly to central Government.

My hon. Friend has already spearheaded the work to regenerate Swallownest High Street in addition to his work on saving Maltby’s grammar school building. I commend him for all his work as lead sponsor for a South Yorkshire joint railway, through the Department for Transport’s restoring your railway fund, which looks to reinstate the connection between Worksop and Doncaster, which includes a number of stops in my hon. Friend’s constituency. The revised bid has been submitted and DFT is currently assessing it; I expect that the Department will be announcing that before the summer. These are hugely important achievements to his constituency and his constituents, and I commend him for his work.

My hon. Friend aptly described the challenges and potential of many local high streets as lifelines for our communities, particularly over the past year, while so many people have had to base themselves at home and had to shop local in their high streets. They have been vital sources of jobs, prosperity, local pride, local identity and community and have great potential to be even stronger local assets than they are now.

The towns and villages of Rother Valley are rich in history, from their ancient beginnings to their proud industrial heritage. I remember very well my hon. Friend’s maiden speech, in which he explained how his constituents’ hard work, skills and resourcefulness are forged into the very heart of our democracy: the Palace of Westminster was rebuilt from limestone transported here from the quarries of Anston. However, of course we completely recognise that over more recent decades, the pace of industrial and economic change has created new challenges and barriers to growth, prosperity and social mobility in places such as Rother Valley. These challenges, which my hon. Friend has outlined, are the reason why levelling up is crucial to our vision, and why we have set out a clear commitment to unlock economic prosperity across all parts of the country.

Our landmark White Paper on levelling up will be published later this year. That will lay out bold new policies that will improve opportunity, support businesses and high streets and boost livelihoods across the country, including of course in Rother Valley. Levelling up is about providing the momentum to address precisely those long-standing local inequalities that my hon. Friend has so clearly articulated, and providing the means for people to pursue life chances that have previously been out of reach. We are backing up these levelling-up ambitions with considerable funding, helping to unlock the investments most needed in our communities—the investments that our constituents want to see—particularly as we support places to recover and build back better from the pandemic.

The spending review in November 2020 announced £27 billion of investment in transport, energy and digital communications to help level up the entire country. Through the restart scheme we are providing a further £5 billion to specifically help businesses, including on the high street, which my hon. Friend talked so passionately about, as the covid-19 restrictions are lifted. In April we launched our £56 million welcome back fund, from which my hon. Friend’s council has received £470,000. That builds on our reopening high streets safely scheme, which has been supporting councils and businesses across the country, helping ensure a safe return to the high street. The high streets taskforce will also be providing expert advice to a number of towns around the country, including visiting local towns alongside stakeholders. That will be followed up by ongoing, continued support that can help the wider area, including through planning, advice, training and workshops. I am pleased to confirm that Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council covers one of the areas that will receive that tailored support; I am sure that it will work with my hon. Friend to deliver it in the places that he names, such as Dinnington and Maltby.

That targeted support for councils and their high streets comes on top of the extra local government support that has been received by local authorities this year, not only through the finance settlement, but in the covid grants. We have provided more than £9 billion directly to councils across the country, including more than £46 million for Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council, of which more than £24 million has been un-ringfenced so that the council can spend it on local priorities such as supporting the high streets and economic regeneration, as my hon. Friend outlined.

Our reforms of the planning system are also set to further unleash the power and potential of local high streets by removing eyesores, transforming unused buildings and making the most of brownfield land. There will be more freedom to allow outdoor markets and dining, and longer opening hours. We will make it easier to change the uses of buildings, to keep our town centres vibrant and to support more thriving businesses. In total, approximately £25 billion has been transferred from Government to businesses through covid support grants during the pandemic. Across South Yorkshire, that amounts to more than £487 million in support for businesses through local authorities, and more than £177 million for businesses in Rotherham.[Official Report, 17 May 2021, Vol. 695, c. 4MC.]

Our £520 million Help to Grow scheme, announced in the Budget, will also provide help to small businesses right across the country to learn skills, reach new customers and boost their opportunity and reach, while the furlough scheme continues to protect those workers who are most affected by the ongoing impacts of the pandemic as we successfully move through our road map towards the reopening of local economies.

My hon. Friend talked about levelling up and the levelling-up fund. The White Paper on levelling up will be a natural continuation of our commitment to support local places, building in particular on the £4.8 billion levelling-up fund, which was announced in the last spending review and will allow local areas right across the country to invest in infrastructure that improves everyday life. That will include regenerating town centres, upgrading local transport networks and investing in cultural heritage assets—exactly the kinds of project that my hon. Friend talked about.

The prospectus that we published for the levelling-up fund in March explained how we are welcoming bids from all parts of the country, but we have also been clear on the areas of the country that have the highest category of need, based on the fund’s priority themes of economic recovery, improved transport connectivity and regeneration. As my hon. Friend correctly points out, Rother Valley, within the Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council area, is in the highest category of need. Councils in category 1, such as Rotherham, will benefit from £125,000 of capacity funding to help them to work up their bids for the fund.

We have also recognised explicitly, through the levelling-up fund prospectus, the crucial role that local Members of Parliament can play in championing the interests of their constituents and communities, and in understanding the local priorities. That is why we expect bidding authorities to fully consult their MPs as part of the process; I am pleased to hear that my hon. Friend’s council has been doing so and working with him on his priorities alongside other businesses and stakeholders in the area. MPs can officially endorse one of the bids by writing in and can support other bids in the usual way. This is a hugely important part of the bidding process; it is a positive role for MPs in helping to shape the bids and perhaps in acting as a local broker for consensus on what the area really needs. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for all his work on that alongside his council.

On 30 April we published some updated information to clarify a number of issues for all bidding authorities and respond to some common questions, which will help to address some of the issues that my hon. Friend raised about the type of bids that can be submitted. It provides further guidance on, for instance, how up to three projects can be presented as part of a package of proposals within one bid. He referenced multiple projects that he would like to consider alongside his council and other stakeholders for that bid.

Later this year, we will set out more detail about future rounds of the levelling-up fund and how it will work from 2022. While I cannot comment on the specific merits of any of the emerging proposals that he is working on alongside his council or, unfortunately, their chances of success, I certainly encourage him to keep working with his council and to get that bid in by midday on Friday 18 June. We look forward to receiving that.

I also want to mention the UK community renewal fund, which sits alongside the levelling-up fund to pilot new approaches to tackling the skills, employment and local business support challenges faced in different communities. Ultimately, the UK community renewal fund will help us pave the way for the introduction of the new UK shared prosperity fund from 2022, about which we will be saying more in an investment framework later this year. It is important that local areas look to the dual opportunities of the levelling-up fund and the UK community renewal fund, which have the potential to complement each other extremely positively. Given that Rotherham is in the high priority category for the UK community renewal fund, we very much hope it will be submitting for both bids, and we look forward to receiving them. Rotherham should grasp the opportunity that both funds present.

My hon. Friend has passionately articulated the case for his community. I congratulate him on securing this debate and on his determination to deliver for Rother Valley. We believe that all areas of this country should have the means to positively shape their future. That is important now more than ever as we look to recover from covid-19, and he has made the point that residents of Rother Valley can sometimes feel in need of levelling up. There is the work he is doing on Dinnington and Swallownest high streets, the work he is doing alongside my right hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase on net zero jobs and the work he is doing on Maltby’s grammar school building and the South Yorkshire Joint Railway proposal. It is clear that Rother Valley and wider South Yorkshire is building on its rich industrial past, ushering in a new era of economic renewal and innovation under the leadership of my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley, alongside his colleagues.

One thing is extremely clear: since my hon. Friend’s election, he has placed Rother Valley at the centre of a political map. His community now has a loud, strong and powerful voice in Parliament, which cannot be ignored. He has made sure that Ministers and the whole Government are listening, and he has left us in no doubt that we must deliver for Rother Valley.

Question put and agreed to.